New Font?

[Sagian]

FFXI doesn't render the 3D scene directly to the framebuffer. It renders it into a texture which is placed on a 2D plane "behind" the other HUD elements. If the resolution of this texture is different than the screen resolution it gets resized to fit. The only HUD elements that are actually a part of the 3D scene are the character/monster names and the linkpearl icon. All other UI elements are rendered separately.

I wasn't really talking about the 3D scene, since I don't consider any element of it (including names and icons) as part of the HUD.

Menu boxes, text windows, buff icons, clock, compass, text, etc. are first written to a 2D plane, then that plane is projected using a z-coordinate to establish what-appears-in-front-of-what. So, text isn't actually written in the menu boxes - it's written in front of them - but it uses a non-perspective transformation so that things with a larger z-coordinate do not appear scaled by distance.

It's that last bit that has caused problems with HUD elements and different cards and drivers all the way back to FFVII, especially with fonts. I can't say for certain if that is actually what is happening here, but I can safely say "I see a pattern."